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TURNS OUT VOTING FOR DIVERSITY WITH YOUR WALLET ISNT ENOUGH

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

By Jamaal Ryan

Have you heard anyone recently still complaining about Far
Cry 4 being racist? Nah, me neither.

After the confirmation during and after E3 that Far Cry 4
wasn’t the colonialist story of brute force racism everyone accused it for
being, the conversation evaporated. We found out that Far Cry 4’s main
protagonist, Ajay Ghale, was a native of the fictional Kyrat returning home to
spread his mother’s ashes across their home country. Not white. Not a
colonialist.

Though the creative direction is being led by Alex
Hutchinson, who’s already proven his social taste in being the creative lead on
Assassins Creed 3, the writers behind Far Cry 4 were well aware of the
criticisms of Far Cry 3. In a recent Playstation event reported by Polygon, script writer C.J. Kershner
stated that, "We were aware of
the discussions happening aboutFar Cry 3. People
identified some problems."

Far Cry 3 sold tremendously well, well enough for Ubisoft to
quickly continue the franchise only two years later. Whereas Jason Brody was a
white young male vacationing in a later to be discovered pirate infested
tropical island and was then solely responsible for saving these seemingly aboriginals
from their other, more savage halves, Far Cry 4 is a story of a native born
refugee returning home. The difference in narrative tone wasn’t because sales
were underwhelming, it was because a fair minded creative team listened to the public.

I spoke before
about the importance of expressing ones opinion within the context of Far Cry
4, highlighting the influence that it can have on the creative process. While
the notion of “voting with your wallet” is effective in letting the publishers
and developers know that something didn’t
work, it’s not enough to pinpoint the problem. Generating a discussion on what
doesn’t sit well with you creates context within criticism, giving game makers
something tangible to fix and improve.

Seeing a big name publisher title move from a narratively
impaired, but mechanically impressive shooter, to (developing into) an even more
interesting experience from both a story and gameplay perspective, is a
reassuring sign that game makers are listening. So keep talking.